AN ARTILLERY AMAZON.
There was an affair brought under my cognizance about seven years previous to my retirement, of which I have a perfect recollection, and in which, I am free to confess, I busied myself beyond my magisterial duties for mere amusement. An artillery soldier strolled into town from his barracks at Portobello, and having indulged freely in liquor, betook himself to a house in Bow Lane, off Mercer Street, about ten o'clock at night. He was unable to return to his quarters, and having been undressed, was placed in bed to sleep off his intoxication. The inmates of the house were by no means of a reputable description, and amongst them was a female unusually tall in stature, and with proportional amplitude of figure. In a sudden whim, she arrayed herself in the uniform of the sleeping soldier, and set out on a nocturnal promenade, to the infinite amusement of her associates, by some of whom she was accompanied. Their obstreperous merriment attracted the attention of the police, and eventuated in the arrest of the amazon. On my arrival at the police-court on the following morning, I was apprised of the extraordinary charge which awaited my investigation; and I immediately communicated with a gentleman with whom I was personally acquainted, and who was in a high position connected with the Ordnance Office. He came to me, and we arranged that I should not dispose of the case in the police-court until the circumstances were made known to the military authorities at Portobello. When the woman was brought before me, I directed a sergeant of police to take her in a covered vehicle to the barrack, and, in the meantime, the artillery man was captured in Bow Lane by a party sent from the barracks, and as his own attire was not forthcoming, he was brought away in a cab, and with habiliments not altogether suitable to his sex or his station. The heroine was submitted to some of the women, who divested her of the martial appearance she had assumed, and transferred the garments to two non-commissioned officers, who gave in return the clothes or improvised vestments that covered the soldier during his return to barracks. I did not inflict any further punishment on the woman, and I believe that the artillery man was not severely treated: but I was informed by some of his officers that he was made the object of the most persistent banter and ridicule amongst his comrades, who accorded him the soubriquet of "Mary Anne." I believe, indeed, that severe corporal punishment inflicted on his delinquency would not have deterred the other soldiers from the commission of a similar error so effectually as the jests and sarcasms supplied from amongst themselves, and suggested by the appearance of one who had returned from his roving so very unsuitably.